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Distraught   Listen
verb
Distraught  past part., adj.  
1.
Torn asunder; separated. (Obs.) "His greedy throat... distraught."
2.
Distracted; perplexed. "Distraught twixt fear and pity." "As if thou wert distraught and mad with terror." "To doubt betwixt our senses and our souls Which are the most distraught and full of pain."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Distraught" Quotes from Famous Books



... no entrance possible here, or indeed anywhere: but, being half-distraught, I ran around to the small door of the north aisle. This, too, was on fire—or, rather, was already consumed; and you will say that I must have been wholly distraught when I tell you what I saw, looking in through the aperture ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... only one thought—a thought lashed to the fore by his jealous rage, and defeated hopes. And poor Joyce, distraught and grief-crazed, realized not the terrible blunder ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... him. She wished to be always with him, and always talking to him; but it soon came to his imploring her not to talk when she was in the room where he was writing; and he often came to the table so distraught that the meal might have passed without a word ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... his jolly little face clouded over, appeared really distressed, and looked from his sister to the florist and back again in a distraught, helpless sort of way, which quite touched the heart of the kind old Dutchman; but neither from him could Johnny's rather incoherent questions draw forth any satisfaction, and the children both were glad ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... like a man distraught. He leapt up from the table and faced full upon his guests, and cried, "Now you know what it is; and now you know why you are bidden to this supper! You are here to rejoice with me over my enemies! Drink! drink! Confusion to all of them!" And he lifted a winecup ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... was there a more miserable man than I. All night I sat in the room where I was wont to work, and to my wife's entreaties that I should take some rest I answered that the affairs of Spain compelled attention. And when morning found me haggard and distraught came a courier from Philip ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... get any more hard words, wherefore he had heard nothing. Hereupon I, as Dom. Consul afterwards told the pastor of Benz, clenched my fists and answered, "What, thou arch-rogue, didst thou not crawl about the room in the shape of a reptile?" whereupon he would hearken to me no longer, thinking me distraught, nor would he make the constable take an oath, but left me standing in the midst of the room, and got into ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... grief is that we have to fear; the eyes see all things falling to decay, and yet the heart finds joy in following them; but I have little strength of purpose, or command; this heart of mine is feeble and distraught, reflecting thus on age, disease, and death. Distracted, as I never was before; sleepless by night and day, how can I then indulge in pleasure? Old age, disease, and death consuming me, their certainty beyond a doubt, and still ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... Chubb's "Fly-by-day," as Dr. Travis called the one automobile that Miller's Notch boasted, chugged busily over the mountain roads. John Westley started out very early to find his friends at Cobble; then he had to drive back to Wayside to appease a distraught manager and half a dozen angry guides and also to pack his belongings; for the Allans would not let him stay anywhere else but with them at Cobble. Then, after he had been comfortably established in the freshly painted and papered guest-room of the old stone house which ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... fault but not a crime; but that if I would not pardon her, she, too, would die. All that sincere repentance has of tears, all that sorrow has of eloquence, she exhausted in order to console me; pale and distraught, her dress deranged, her hair falling over her shoulders, she kneeled in the middle of her chamber; never have I seen anything so beautiful, and I shuddered with horror as my ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... next few days by some curious, indefinable change in Mrs. Brand's demeanor. The poor woman had of late seemed almost distraught; she had lost all care, apparently, for appearances, and went along the corridors moaning Wyvis' name sadly to herself, and wringing her hands as if in bitter woe. Her dress was neglected, and her hair unbrushed: indeed, when Janetta ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... Lord, Martin, when she waked from her swoon aboard ship and found I had sailed without you, she was like one distraught and was for having me 'bout ship that she might stay to comfort you in your solitude. And so I did, Martin, but we were beset by storm and tempest and blown far out of our course and further beset by pirates and the like evils, and in the end came hardly to England ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... Jesus Christ, so good and pure was the life he led.[NOTE 3] And when he died they found his body and brought it to his father. And when the father saw dead before him that son whom he loved better than himself, he was near going distraught with sorrow. And he caused an image in the similitude of his son to be wrought in gold and precious stones, and caused all his people to adore it. And they all declared him to be a god; and so they ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... be Seem plunged into silence, distraught, By some stern, some necessitous thought: It wraps and enthralls Marsh, meadow, and forest; and ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman

... distraught, ate hardly anything, and her faculties were subjected to a strain so extraordinary that I thought she would not escape a serious, perhaps a fatal illness. Sleep had long since deserted her, and whenever I brought her my unlucky Fliegender ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... poured forth money to create a Paradise out here, and, when it was nearly finished, had suddenly repented of his whim and refused to spend another farthing. The thousands upon thousands of mighty trees were bounded by long, irregular walls of hard earth, at the top of which were stuck distraught thorn bushes. These walls gave the rough, penurious aspect which was in such sharp contrast to the exotic mystery they guarded. Yet in the fierce blaze of the sun their meanness was not disagreeable. Domini even liked it. It seemed ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... but you shall know. I was absent when you were carried to my house—searching for my dear ones. But Dr. Gray tended you; alas! the good man is now a prisoner. I returned three days after, driven back from up the river by the advance of the Nawab's army. I was worn out, distraught; not a trace had I found of my dear wife; she had vanished; nor of my daughter; nor even of my peons; ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... hastened not to view the scene, But lent a willing ear To idle gossip, and were clean Distraught with foolish fear. ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher

... true desire, Or faithful vow of endless love, Thy heart inflamed may kindly move With equal fire; O then my joys, So long distraught, shall rest, Reposed soft in thy chaste breast, Exempt ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... of Berkeley is indeed greater than anything that he did, and one wonders not as one explores the young preacher's noble and endearing character that the distraught Vanessa fastened upon him, though she knew him only by reputation, as one who would make it his sacred duty to do all in his power to set her memory right in ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... mine ear confess'd Its solemn sounds. "Thou man distraught! Say, owns the wind thy hand's arrest, Or fills the world thy ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... eastern port. Well, I came here last night, and learned that you were back out of sanctuary and also that you had quarrelled with your father who in his anger had imprisoned you in this poor place. An ill deed, as I think, but in truth he is so distraught with grief and racked with sickness that he scarce ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... "Athenaeum" for 1835 Procter says: "I happened to call at Lamb's house about ten minutes after this accident; I saw before me a train of water running from the door to the river. Lamb had gone for a surgeon; the maid was running about distraught, with dry clothes on one arm, and the dripping habiliments of the involuntary bather in the other. Miss Lamb, agitated, and whimpering forth 'Poor Mr. Dyer!' in the most forlorn voice, stood plunging her hands into the wet pockets of his trousers, to fish up the wet coin. Dyer himself, an ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... box, she replied that in the box there were several family papers, and among them a general confession which she desired to make; when she wrote it, however, her mind was disordered; she knew not what she had said or done, being distraught at the time, in a foreign country, deserted by her relatives, forced to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... their united hum, the old man paused, looking at first a little distraught, but settling at last into his usual self as he started forward upon his course. Did some whisper, hitherto unheard, warn him that it was the last time he would tread that weary round? Who can tell? He was ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... fiercely upon her and bent forward, his hand falling upon his sword-hilt; then he grew red at his hot action, and looked about to see if 'twas noticed. "Get thee gone, thou saucy, lisping minx." The poor thing was well-nigh distraught with fear of this man whose anger came like a thunderbolt, and she fell heavy upon the lackey who conducted her forth. She slipped through the corridors like a fast fleeting shadow, and Janet followed her close and saw her enter a certain chamber apart where she was met by one of the dancers; ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... distraught, but she knew not how to naysay him, though at heart she would liefer have gone back to the castle by the shortest way. So folk brought her her palfrey, and they rode their ways, the castellan ever ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... lance. The woman was talking and laughing to it, her clothes were torn, and her hair fell in wild disorder over her shoulders. It needed but a glance to tell Malcolm that the poor creature was mad, distraught by the horrors of ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... my heavie spright, 575 At sight of these sad spectacles forepast, That all my senses were bereaved quight, And I in minde remained sore agast, Distraught twixt feare and pitie; when at last I heard a voyce which loudly to me called, 580 That with the suddein shrill ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... moment with the wild, distraught look of one who sees a sight altogether beyond belief or reason, then he made to spring forward. But he was chained to the Kachins who stood upon either side of him, and two more leapt forward from their posts by the wall ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... agonised and distraught eye that he had not come merely to exchange civilities. "What can I do for you?" ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner

... to withdraw from the scene of it, a permission of which he availed himself without further delay; first retreating for some distance along the Shell Road, as one wandering and distraught; then, as if seized by a sudden thought, diving into the timbered ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... for the great sacrificial rite, and nothing so mournful had ever been seen before. Black garments and pale, distraught faces were encountered at every turn. Four hundred maidens of the noblest birth, clad in long white robes and wearing crowns of cypress, accompanied the princess. The latter was borne in an open litter of black velvet, that all men might behold the wondrous ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault

... had Pepper slept. Presently, feeling lonely and distraught, I called to him, softly; but he took no notice. Again, I called, raising my voice slightly; still he moved not. I walked over to where he lay, and touched him with my foot, to rouse him. At the action, gentle though ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... luggage she looked and felt not only like one who has slept (but not much) in a train for two nights and fought with Germans about windows but also like an elderly virgin martyr (spiritually tense and strung-up, and distraught, and on the line ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... Cousin, Canst thou quake, and change thy colour, Murther thy breath in middle of a word, And then againe begin, and stop againe, As if thou were distraught, and mad with terror? Buck. Tut, I can counterfeit the deepe Tragedian, Speake, and looke backe, and prie on euery side, Tremble and start at wagging of a Straw: Intending deepe suspition, gastly Lookes Are at my seruice, like ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... may, for before he uses the handkerchief or any evidence, on mere suspicion Othello is already racked with doubt, distraught with jealousy, maddened with passion; "his occupation's gone"; he rages against Iago ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... more successful. The employees listened to his interrogations with a distraught air. He could come back again; just now they were taken up with the announcement that another hospital train was on the way. The great battle was still going on near Paris. They had to improvise lodgings for the new consignment of mutilated humanity. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... no less than five sallies after as many different men; and three of these had engagements for the evening, and two of them were out of town. What with the condition of the stock-market and the gloomy outlook for the dinner-party, Mr. Smith, albeit he was ordinarily a calm, sedate man, was almost distraught. ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier

... as if either he or I were mad. Then, of a sudden his face changed; and he nodded. I could see how distraught ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... all well dressed. She was indeed shabby—in a steerage style. Her hat was awry; her gloves miserable. No girlish pride in her distraught face. No determination to overcome Fate. No consciousness of ability to meet a bad situation. Just those sad eyes and ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... of the poor, for whom thy ceaseless thought Is as the sun, that warms the earthy clod Into a flush of blossom beauty-fraught, Waking in hearts by poverty distraught Glimpses in life ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... rest were silent, they too were silent. And so they held broken discourse; and ever the young Knight spoke in Margaret's ear, so that Paul was much distraught, but dared not seem to intervene, or to speak with the maiden, when he had ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Dene, for the day. She seemed almost distraught. Hadria could see her only at intervals. The sick children required all her attention. Valeria wished to visit them. She had brought the poor ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... where, during the first days of their honeymoon, they had always breakfasted. For sentimental reasons they now revisited it. But Dolly was eager to return at once to the flat and pack, and Carter seemed distraught. He explained that he ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis

... shall hang on you as heavy as your chains of gold, to drag you down to him in whose name you have thought to cast out devils. Do not think that these things are harmless vanities. Nothing can fill the human heart and be harmless. If your thoughts be not of God, they will keep your minds distraught from His grace as effectually as the blackest broodings of crime. 'Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number, saith the Lord God.' Yes, your minds are too puny to ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... him composedly, "that he was here before you to give me the truth of this affair." Then her assumed calm and the anger with which she had met his own all fell away from her. "Oh, Peter, Peter," she cried in anguish, "I hope that Sir John will recover. I am distraught by this event. But be just, I implore you. Sir Oliver has told me how ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... and sat [awhile] sorrowing. Then said he to himself, 'O Abou Sabir, it behoveth thee to be patient, for belike there shall betide [thee] an affair yet sorer than this and more grievous;' and he went forth wandering at a venture, like to the love-distraught, the madman, till he came to a sort of labourers working upon the palace of the king, by way of forced labour. When [the overseers] saw him, they laid hold of him and said to him, 'Work thou with these ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... the hill, and decided that to this extent she was right. With one hand gripping the sovereign, and the other lifted to his distraught brow, the Commandant strode to the room where Vashti sat at breakfast. She looked up and welcomed him with a ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... conversation, and left our illusion quite alone, sparing us all jarring criticism and analysis; and he gave me no chance, when he deposited us at our gate, to get rid of the clumsy expressions of gratitude I had been laboriously framing. For the rest of the evening, distraught and silent, I only heard the march-music of the band, playing on in some corner of my brain. When at last my head touched the pillow, in a trice I was with Zephyrine, riding the boundless Sahara, cheek to cheek, the world well lost; while ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... joyous, Christmasy. She rambled about a little. There was the Clairvoyant's sign. Could any one tell about the future, even another's health? For, somehow it seemed as if her mother had been curiously distraught of late. If she could know about the future! Oh, her mother must live the year out, and she was learning a great many things. She would do for an under teacher then, and by ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... time you should ask after her, poor lady; she is distraught almost. Why, she has not slept, but paced the chamber all night long. I prayed her to have a posset, or some aqua-vitae, and to get to bed and sleep a little for her health's sake, but she answered me she was afraid she might ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde

... intensely, pleadingly, his finger on his lips—"but I—never felt like that before. I got terribly—nervous, and I felt that if I did not get away from that house I should go mad." Even the recollection made Nina look so distraught that her aunt's indignation turned to anxiety, and she put her arm around the girl and ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... heaven it is you! I am so distraught with the doleful ringing of that bell that I am frightened at the sound of my own footsteps. Why ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... know nothing of the precipices down which our virtue flings us when led by love," replied Sabine, making a sort of moral revelation, so distraught ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... his sister, with a gesture toward the study where Cousin Jasper, distraught, worried, and forlorn, must even then ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... look into the matter, and was coldly greeted. Ginger, for all his love of dogs, had never been able to bring himself to regard Toto with affection. He had protested when Sally, a month before, finding Mrs. Meecher distraught on account of a dreadful lethargy which had seized her pet, had begged him to offer hospitality and country ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... woe distressed, One corner of her raiment pressed To her sad cheek like moonlight clear, And wiped away a falling tear. The rover of the night renewed His eager pleading as he viewed The lady stand like one distraught, Striving to fix her ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... thank God, seemed to the casual glance, just as he had left it,—but in her fingers she held what appeared to be a letter, and as he watched, unobserved, she crumpled it and tossed it into the flames that cast bright flecks of color on her cheeks. Her face looked somewhat miserable and distraught—but that hardly comported with what should be expected had she learned the truth—unless possibly it was the exhaustion of wretchedness following the violence of a swiftly sweeping and cyclonic storm. On the whole, her attitude ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... me to write. I am distraught, my mind is gone. Write to the grand duchess that I no ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... each night with a sense of being more deeply indebted to him as well as a feeling of having been near him. Once she saw a face strangely like his in the upper gallery, and the blood tingled round her heart, and she played the remainder of the act with mind distraught. "Can it be possible that he is still in the ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... ceiling, the scratched walls, the shabby rags. Standing on the wretched spangles that strewed the dusty floor, Lily, drunk with joy ... Jimmy, distraught with pride ... seemed like youth and love, in mid-sky, among ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... (quoth he) hath thus distraught Thee, foolish man, so rash a doome to give? 335 What justice[*] ever other judgement taught, But he should die, who merites not to live? None else to death this man despayring drive, But his owne guiltie mind deserving death. Is then unjust[*] ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... white-faced, distraught girl pityingly. They remembered that she was to have been the dying man's wife. The whole thing had been so sudden, was so shocking and tragic. No wonder that she looked like death herself; they could not guess at the ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper

... and prefects and surveyors and engineers to judge of, not for him or you. Be reasonable, Adone; do not speak or act like a fool. This is the first grief you have known in your life, and you are distraught by it. That is natural enough, my poor boy. But you exaggerate the danger. It must be far off as yet. ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... Charmian up again. Antony had been unable to continue the conflict when parted from me. Now he sat in front of the cabin with his head resting on his hands, staring at the planks of the deck like one distraught. He, he—Antony! The bravest horseman, the terror of the foe, let his arms fall like a shepherd-boy whose sheep are stolen by the wolves. Mark Antony, the hero who had braved a thousand dangers, had flung down his sword. Why, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... herself wandering distraught, seated on her 'unhastie beast,' when with a fearful roar a lion rushed out from a thicket with eyes glaring and teeth gleaming, seeking to devour his prey. But at the sight of Una's tender beauty he stopped suddenly, and, stooping ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... to the telephone. "What? But they're not here! Very strange! They should have been here half an hour ago. Send some one—yes, at once." In the ensuing silence he repaired to the buffet and drank a glass of vodka. Quite distraught he was. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... in the fact that Louise, dreamy and distraught, stood at her bedroom bureau that night, scribbling "Washington" here and there over a sheet of paper. But there was something significant in the fact that she scratched the word out every time she wrote it; examined the erasure critically to ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... to make this scene bewildering in sublimity? One? No. The auditor is Job, sitting in the ruin of home and love, and friendships and consequence among men, and good repute, and if, bending low, you will hear him, you shall know he is sobbing for children that are not. One lonely, distraught, mystified, sorely-beleagured, and still surely-trusting man,—this is the audience. The scene is a tawny desert, once sown to oases of flowers, and billowing grain, and stately palm-tree, and olive-groves, now harvestless, flowerless, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... and ever forget the lines giving the gay Italian rhyme, with the boy's picturesquely childish prose-accompaniment? Strafford is seated, weary and distraught:— ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... said the distraught man, looking listlessly beyond her. "I am here to see Oliver—he is ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... heard no more, But spike: Alas! my heart is very weak, And but for—Stay! And if some dreadful morn, After great search and shouting thorough the wold, We found thee missing,—strangled,—drowned i' the mere, Then should I go distraught and be ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Lady,' said Spinks, 'there are plenty of us to testify that he made my young Lord fall back as in a swoon, and reel like one distraught. Pray Heaven it ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... his senses in doubt, To see the grey friar a diver so stout; Then sadly and slowly his castle he sought, And left the friar diving, like dabchick distraught. ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... this reached Trevlyn's ear, but he gave them at first little heed. He should never marry, he said; it was sinful to wed without love. But as he saw Alexandrine's pale face and strangely distraught manner day by day, he came to feel as if he had in some way wronged her though how ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... the doings of Prince John the King's brother: how he had commerce with the French to the King's damage, and was troubling all loyal men, and had taken all the money that was in the treasury. When the King heard these things he was sore distraught. And indeed he was in a great strait. On the one hand there was the purpose for which he had come on his present journey, the taking again of the Holy City; and, on the other, there was the loss of his own kingdom at home. For in the letter it was ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... and before he could stop her she had left the room. In her place, the Baroness was standing upon the threshold, dressed in a wonderful blue wrapper, and with a cigarette between her teeth. She burst into a little peal of laughter as she looked into his distraught face. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... may very likely then have known something of the bliss of love; but it was not for long. Though Vassily—for lack of other occupation—did not drop her, and even attached himself to her and looked after her fondly, Olga herself was so utterly distraught that she found no happiness even in love and yet could not tear herself away from Vassily. She began to be frightened at everything, did not dare to think, could talk of nothing, gave up reading, and was devoured by misery. Sometimes Vassily succeeded ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... for a girl with dark lines under the eyes, is that of "the girl-with-a-past." These lines, which are mostly the result of liver, are commonly accepted as evidence of soul. The dress should be sombre, trailing, and rather distraught: there is a way of arranging a fichu which of itself suggests that the heart beneath it is blighted. If you happen to possess a few ornaments which are not too expensive, distribute them among your girl-friends; say, in a repressed voice, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various

... ago she had thought she could not endure was at last upon her! Her teeth began to chatter again, and her hands, which had been clasped, to twist themselves with the writhing motion of the mentally distraught. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... off. Then other red dragons came upon him in his wounds and beat him sore, which seeing, the white dragon dashed upon them all—and I awoke. Merlin, tell me what this may mean, for my mind is sore distraught ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... concentrated all its consciousness upon the strand of hair she continually smoothed through her fingers. Dr. Worth, in his capacity of physician, accompanied the flying families, and he was thus able to pay some attention to his distraught wife; but she answered nothing he said to her. If she looked at him, her eyes either flamed with anger, or expressed something of the terror to be seen in the eyes of a hunted animal. It was evident that her childish ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... something poignant about her delicate distraught loveliness and, in the remoteness of his being, a shuddering knowledge that it was quite true that she would do anything for any man who would take care of her, produced an effect on him nothing else would have produced. Also ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... compartment to herself, and as the train rushed out of London, and the grimy environs of the metropolis gradually gave place to green fields, she endeavoured to compose her mind and collect her thoughts for her coming interview with the daughter of the murdered man. But her mind was in such a distraught condition that she could think of no plan but to sacrifice herself in order to save her husband. With cold hands pressed against her hot forehead, she muttered again and again, as if offering up an invocation ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... were inscribed ran together and became indistinct. Accordingly, on the advice of the soothsayers, they offered many expiatory sacrifices and voted that a larger statue of Jupiter should be set up, looking toward the east and the Forum, in order that the conspiracies by which they were distraught might dissolve. ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio

... been like a different person—absent in your mind—incoherent in your speech—abrupt in your manner. You have forsaken your old friends completely, and apparently lost all interest in their doings, all desire for their company. In short, you have behaved like a man beside himself, distraught. We could not make it out, and we had many anxious consultations about the matter. I wondered whether you had had a sunstroke. Carmichael suggested that the stimulating air of Venus had affected your brain. Miss Carmichael alone suspected that you were in ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... cried, "what has happened to you? I have been nearly distraught with doubt and fear, hearing nothing of you since your ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... outraged his reason and made his heart sick. He felt like a sane man shut up by accident in a madhouse. After a day of this wandering he found himself at nightfall in a company of his former companions, who rallied him on his distraught appearance. He told them of his dream and what it had taught him of the possibilities of a juster, nobler, wiser social system. He reasoned with them, showing how easy it would be, laying aside the suicidal folly of competition, by means of fraternal co-operation, to make ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... here and there like a man distraught. He peered into every face. He caught up a lantern that some one had set down, and ran to and fro in the darkness, stooping to let the light fall on those on the ground, holding up the red glare to the windows ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... against the door was a tall, white figure, its arms spread out like the limbs of a cross. Screams, both shrill and discordant, filled the room,—Martini, Beppo, Marietta, and the girls tumbling and rushing about distraught with terror. Such a mad-like scene! There was a trembling and a shaking of the white figure for a moment, then down it went in a heap to the floor, and out came the substantial proportions of Doctor Morani, looming formidable in the dusky light of the expiring embers. The sound ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... Mrs. Tuis. She was trying to lead the girl to the mirror. If only she could be made to see how distraught and disorderly she looked! "Let me help you to dress, dear—you know how much better it always ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... doctors and four or five nurses, with a dozen soldiers under command of Lieutenant Bray. It was while the apparently dead Bansemer was being moved to the improvised hospital that Jane presented herself, distraught with fear, to the young Southerner who had so plainly shown his love for her. She pleaded with him to start at once for Manila with the wounded, supporting her extraordinary request with the opinion that they could not ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... her distraught friend with a loving hand, drew back in real fear that she was confronted by a maniac. The utter outrageousness of this new infliction brought tears to her eyes. Yet she choked back her grief for the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... very still for some minutes, and looked like one newly awakened and very much amazed, then, to the great surprise of those about her, she rose without any aid, and stood holding by her high staff, while, with a slightly distraught air, she bowed to them, first ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... or two later she noticed that he seemed to be a bit distraught, and she feared he was getting weary of ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte

... have had no chance against the most powerful Zulu living. But the prince was utterly exhausted; his sides were going like a blacksmith's bellows, or those of a fat eland bull that has been galloped to a standstill. Moreover, he seemed to me to be distraught with grief, and, lastly, he had no shield left, ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... story and his astounding news and drew a vivid enough picture of the havoc it had wrought in his simplicity. He used a lover's language, but his letter was as cold and lumpish as a golden ingot. And yet the writer was not cold. He was throbbing and distraught, confused and overthrown, a boy of fourteen beside himself at the prospect of a holiday ... It was a stolen holiday, to be sure, a sort of truancy from manliness, but none the less intoxicating for that. Cosme's Latin nature was on top; Saxon loyalty and conscience overthrown. He was an ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... Humphrey Ratcliffe—My Good Friend,—This comes from one nearly distraught with grief of mind and sickness of body. My boy, my boy! They have stolen him from me. Can you find him for me? He is in the hands of Jesuits—it may be at Douay—I dare say no more. I cannot say more. Good Ned, Heaven ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... confessed it was; while as for the history of the matter, there are who hold that 'Sir Patrick Spens,' for example, is the work of Lady Wardlaw, which to others, myself among them, is a thing preposterous and distraught. ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... the company had failed, and that he and Farley had been appointed receivers, he took it as a financial matter, of course, somewhat beyond his ken, and went about his daily task of supervision with a mind as undisturbed as it would have been distraught had he known something of the subterranean mechanism by which the failure and the receivership had been brought ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... he said, starting somewhat. "So that is where the young queen was hidden, after all? There was wailing when her men found that she was missing, and they said that she must have gone distraught in her grief, and wandered to the mountains. How was she ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler

... whether the man had understood the force of her words, and whether he had gleaned any profit therefrom, said, as she flew aloft, 'Shame, sir, on thy fecklessness! What a treasure that hast lost to-day! For I have inside me a pearl larger than an ostrich-egg.' When the fowler heard thereof, he was distraught with grief, regretting that the bird had escaped out of his hands. And he would fain have taken her again. 'Come hither,' said he, 'into my house: I will make thee right welcome, and send thee forth with honour.' But the ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... visit she was silent and distraught. Twice at dinner her shaking hands knocked over her coffee-cup, and once the sorghum-pitcher, little fair-haired Evy cleaning up quietly after her granny, and placing things to her hand so deftly and furtively that she did not know it was done at all, while ...
— Sight to the Blind • Lucy Furman

... with Damayanti on the ground in weariness. And suddenly plunged in distress, the innocent and delicate Damayanti with every mark of good fortune, fell into a profound slumber. And, O monarch, while she slept, Nala, with heart and mind distraught, could not slumber calmly as before. And reflecting on the loss of his kingdom, the desertion of his friends, and his distress in the woods, he thought with himself, "What availeth my acting thus? And what if I act not thus? Is death the better for me now? Or ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... the 6th of August, the Austrians reentered Milan. They themselves said that the Milanese seemed distraught. The Municipality was to blame for having concealed from the people the real state of things, by publishing reports of imaginary victories. Had the unthinking fury of the mob ended, as it so nearly ended, in an irreparable crime, the authors of these falsehoods would have ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... hire a horse in order to set off in pursuit of his friends; nor were his wits so far distraught by the difficulties tormenting them that he was unable to perceive that, even if he could afford to ride, his chance would be inconsiderable of overtaking two men who had already three hours' start ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... simplicity is that of the incompris, in the English novel it is that of the man with whom the incompris consorts. If there is pathos as well as humour, and deepening the humour, in the figure of the distraught knight-errant talking so hopelessly over the head of his attached squire's morality, so too there is pathos, giving depth to the humour of the eccentric philosopher, shooting so hopelessly wide of the intellectual ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... know then that it wouldn't always be there. School boys have limited imaginations. I suppose I thought it was an awfully jolly thing to have it there, to know my way back to it, but there was the school tugging at me. I expect I was a good deal distraught and inattentive that morning, recalling what I could of the beautiful strange people I should presently see again. Oddly enough I had no doubt in my mind that they would be glad to see me . . . Yes, I must have thought ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... end of a great career and of a great romance of love. Leonie Leon was half distraught at the death of the lover who was so soon to be her husband. She wandered for hours in the forest until she reached a convent, where she was received. Afterward she came to Paris and hid herself away in a garret ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... with emotion, "it is well for our dear Queen that thou art so loyal; and well for our distraught land that thou shouldst be near her." He kissed her hand again as he released it. "I spoke but to try thee, my child. If there are those near her whom we may not trust—it is not thou: I know that a de Iblin could not ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... the owner, so I fled, distraught with fear, To the Main Drain sewage-outfall while he snorted in my ear— Reached the four-foot drain-head safely and, in darkness and despair, Felt the brute's proboscis fingering my ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... this as something that did not belong to the world in which I had existence. Everything around me seemed the shadows of somebody's dream, in which I had no part, and could take no interest. I had but two all-absorbing ideas; and these were—injustice and Josephine. So distraught was I with the vastness of the one and with the loveliness of the other, that, when the young and splendid reality stole into the apartment softly, and moved before my eyes in all the fascination of her gracefulness, yet was I scarcely conscious ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... presence. For who in war or peril, in famine or in plague, would lay any value by tobacco, or by money or by the sprightliness of pride, or who would deign welcome licentiousness or sloth? And men in such straits are too wide-awake to be distraught by Hypocrisy, or even by Thoughtlessness; none of the infernal vermin of Distraction dare show himself in one such storm. Whereas Prosperity, with its ease and comfort, is the nurse of all of you; beneath her peaceful ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... O thou distraught wanderer, thou Sannyasin, drunk in the wine of self-intoxication, dost thou not already hear the progress of the human soul along the highway traversing the wide fields of humanity—the thunder of its progress in the car of its achievements, which is destined to overpass the bounds that prevent ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore

... down to rest and laid aside their swords and shields. But still the valiant minstrel stood guard before the hall. He waited, if any would perchance draw near again in strife. Sorely the king made wail, as did the queen. Maids and ladies were distraught with grief. Death, I ween, had conspired against them, wherefore many of the warriors ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown

... you afraid of my old lips? How I have pitied you these months!" She tells him that she has not been unhappy. But perhaps, he says, she is of those who are unhappy without knowing it. Golaud enters, ferocious and distraught. He has blood on his forehead. It is nothing, he says—he has passed through a thicket of thorns. Melisande would wipe his brow. He repulses her fiercely. "I will not have you touch me, do you understand?" ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman

... Staines listened. He listened at varying distances from the door, and in his last position it would have required the most delicate of scientific instruments to measure the distance between his ear and the keyhole. He heard nothing save the wail of a Bones distraught, and the firm "No's" ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace

... quarter. Never have I seen such fast galloping and driving in the Peking streets; never would I have believed that small-footed women, of whom there are a goodly number even in the large-footed Manchu city, could get so nimbly over the ground. Everybody was panic-stricken and distraught, and we could do nothing but look on. They went on running, running, running. Then the waves of men, women and animals disappeared as suddenly as they had come, and the roads became once again silent and ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... of Orestes in masterly fashion. But Orestes appeals to us still more poignantly in his sorrow than when he is distraught. What a fate was his! It was filial piety, obedience to a sacred obligation, drove him to commit his dreadful deed,—a sin the gods cannot but pardon, but which men will never condone. To avenge outraged justice, he has repudiated Nature, has made himself a monster, has torn out his own heart. ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... afternoon and evening Kitty was disturbed and troubled. At times she wanted to laugh at the professor's ridiculous proposal; and again, her cheeks burned with anger; and she could have cried in her shame and humiliation. And with it all her mind was distraught by the persistent question: Was not the professor's conception of an ideal mating the legitimate and logical conclusion of those very advanced ideas of culture which he represented, and which she had so much admired? If she sincerely believed the life represented by the professor ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... Hal's child, Sir Robert!" exclaimed a serving-brother in black, coming eagerly forward; "the villeins on the green told me the poor knave was distraught at having lost ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... remember me How once conspiracy was rife Against my life— The languor of it and the dreaming fond; Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought, The breeze three odors brought, And a gem-flower waved in a wand! Then when I was distraught And could not speak, Sidelong, full on my cheek, What should that reckless zephyr fling But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing! I found that wing broken to-day! For thou are dead, I said, And the strange birds say. I found it with the withered leaves ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost

... with the dark, Byway, where the ears may hark; Live and fierce when day is done, You, that do without the Sun:— What's this game you bring to nought?— Muttering like a thing distraught, Reckoning like a simpleton? (Since the hearing must be brief,— Living or a dying thief!) Cobbled with the anguished stones That the thoroughfare disowns; Stones they gave you for your bread Of ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody

... take some one with you?" I heard the "King" call after me, but I was too distraught to reply, plunging headforemost through the tangled darkness—my brain boiling like a cauldron with anger and a thousand fears, and my heart stung too with wild unreasoning remorse. After all, it ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne

... thee?" cried Wallace, in his bluff, hearty way. "Thou lookest all distraught, as if thou hadst ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... that fear is not a special passion. For Augustine says (QQ. 83, qu. 33) that "the man who is not distraught by fear, is neither harassed by desire, nor wounded by sickness"—i.e. sorrow—"nor tossed about in transports of empty joys." Wherefore it seems that, if fear be set aside, all the other passions are removed. Therefore fear is not a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... Poor Margarita, between her own private anxieties and her multiplied duties of helping in the kitchen, and setting the table, restraining and overseeing her army of infant volunteers, was nearly distraught; not so distraught, however, but that she remembered and found time to seize a lighted candle in the kitchen, run and set it before the statue of Saint Francis of Paula in her bedroom, hurriedly whispering a prayer that the lace might be made whole like new. Several times before the ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... a wild step towards the door, but I caught her back with a sudden mind-vision of Aunt Olivia flying bareheaded and distraught across the fields. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... ordered a canoe to receive M. d'Artagnan and himself. At sight of this he became almost distraught ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... distraught, and gave him little attention at first, with an attitude of listening directed toward the floor above. Finally she gently excused herself for a moment, and hurried up to Leslie's room, where she found a very damp and tearful Leslie ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... on, could not help wondering at the Major's unexpected passion; and could not help remarking, also, that in spite of his desire to be agreeable, and to interest his guest in his scientific discoveries, he was yet distraught, and full of other thoughts. What could be the meaning of it? Was it mere excess of human sympathy? The countenance hardly betokened that: but still, who can trust altogether the expression of a weather-hardened visage of forty-five? So ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... all must end so; I cannot dance any more with you;" and then she affected to hear her mother calling, and left him standing among the jocund crowd, hopeless and distraught with grief. He was not able to recover himself, and the noise and laughter distracted and made him angry. He had expected so much from this occasion, from its influence and associations; and it had been altogether ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... no means emptied his budget of ill news, "poor old madam fell down all of a heap on the floor, and when the wenches lifted her, they found she was stricken with the dead palsy, and she has not spoken, and there's no one knows what to do, for the poor old squire is like one distraught, sitting by her bed like an image on a monument, with the tears flowing down his old cheeks. 'But,' says he to me, 'get you to Hull, Nat, and take madam's palfrey and a couple of sumpter beasts, and bring my good daughter ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... himself; and I toward the ancient Poet turned my steps, reflecting on that speech which seemed hostile to me. He moved on, and then, thus going, he said to me, "Why art thou so distraught?" And I satisfied his demand. "Let thy memory preserve that which thou hast heard against thyself," commanded me that Sage, "and now attend to this," and he raised his finger. "When thou shalt be in presence of the sweet radiance ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... of mind he sought his uncle, and by him was again led before the Archbishop. His reticence and timidity dispersed by his great sorrow, the distraught boy faced the high ecclesiastic with ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... Caesar marched his invincible armies, like juggernauts, over the necks of fallen nations. Napoleon Bonaparte rose with the morning of the nineteenth century, and stood, like some frightful comet, on its troubled horizon. Distraught with the dream of conquest and empire, he hovered like a god on the verge of battle. Kings and emperors stood aghast. The sun of Austerlitz was the rising sun of his glory and power, but it went down, veiled in the dark clouds of Waterloo, and Napoleon the Great, ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... Haggard and distraught was Leander as he went about his business that morning, so mechanically that one customer, who had requested to have his luxuriant locks "trimmed," found himself reduced to a state of penal bullet-headedness before he could protest, ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey

... is pleasant to have spring with us again," answered his wife. "I think, though, that in winter I am happier. In summer I am always worried. I am afraid for the children to be out of my sight, and when you are away on a hunt I am distraught until you are ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... us all! I think my wife will go distraught with the terror of this visitation, if it goes on much longer. What is a man to do for the best? She raves at me sometimes like a maniac for not having taken her away ere the scourge spread as it is doing now. But when ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... I have spoken with Mara, and I fear trouble. Dunwal her father is, with Tregoz his brother, at the right hand of the men who follow Morgan. Morfed the priest is a hater of all that may make for peace with the Saxon. He is well-nigh distraught with hatred of ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... sigh, the next Mildred's sweet lips were upon his own, and she was in his arms. She lay there still, quite still, but even as she lay there rose, as it were, in the midst of the glamour and confusion of his mind, that made him see all things distraught, and seemed to blot out every principle of right and honour, another and far different scene. For, as in a vision, he saw a dim English landscape and a grey ruin, and himself within its shadows with a nobler woman in his arms, "Dethrone me," said a remembered ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... have a heart to feel anything any more," said Alvina, with a strange, distraught ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... and distraught from that room of awful revelation, put her into the car, and brought her back to Northlands. It was the only thing to be done. Barbara's instinct foresaw madness if we took her to the flat in St. John's Wood. Her father's house, her natural ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... king became unconscious, and when he revived he went himself to fetch the queen from the tower. He soon returned with her to the festive chamber, holding her by the hand. She was beautiful and gracious as ever, and having ate and drank a little, she died on the spot. The king, distraught with grief and anger, ordered a furnace to be heated, and threw into it his sister-in-law and the midwife—"ce tison de l'enfer!" As to the princess and her two brothers, I think they made good marriages all three, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... among us. It was a considerable surprise, but we were all ready, and before they had spouted twice, three boats were fast, only myself keeping out, in accordance with my instructions. Samuela was almost distraught with rage and grief at the condition of things. I quite pitied him, although I was anything but pleased myself. However, when I ranged up alongside the mate's fish, to render what assistance was needed, he shouted to me, "We's all right; go'n ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... pocket which she had not been able to look at carefully enough to be sure if she knew the writing, crackled and rustled and set her heart beating excitedly, and her mind to wondering what it might be. She answered Dottie Wetherill's chatter with distraught monosyllables and absent smiles, hoping that Dottie would feel it necessary to go home soon ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill



Words linked to "Distraught" :   overwrought, agitated



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